The 20th of April brought the weary travellers into a region of open leads, [Footnote: Open leads: open ways in an ice-field.] bearing north and south. Resting here for a few hours, Peary and his companions resumed their march at midnight, pushing on with feverish haste to lessen the distance between them and the goal that was luring them on. Travelling as fast as they could till noon of the 21st, they then came to a final halt. Disappointed at once more having to stop before the object of all his striving had been reached, Peary would have liked to make the last dash with only one or two of his men; but he dared not do this in view of the condition of the ice, and reluctantly he had to confess that once again the prize had eluded his grasp. Making observations, he found that they were in 87 deg, 6' north latitude, the most northerly point that had yet been reached by man. Warned by the haggard faces of his comrades and the skeleton figures of the few remaining dogs, Peary saw that no time must be lost in turning back. After hoisting a flag from the summit of the highest pinnacle, and leaving a bottle containing a record of the journey, the exhausted men turned their backs on the Pole, and began the weary march homeward. Trying as the outward march had been, the dangers of the return journey were even greater. Besides, there was no longer the excitement of possible victory to encourage the men in the face of hardships. Killing their dogs for food, and breaking up the sledges to provide fires for cooking, the tired and dispirited explorers pushed on till they found themselves stranded on an island of ice. Was this, then, to be the end of the enterprise, and were they to meet death in that cold and pitiless sea? Such a fate seemed inevitable. But just as they were preparing for the worst, two of the Eskimo scouts came hurrying back to the camp with the report that, a few miles farther on, the water was covered with a film of young ice, and that there was a possibility of their being able to cross on snow-shoes. It was a desperate chance, but they were prepared to take it; and carefully fixing on their snow-shoes, they made the venture, the lightest and most experienced Eskimo taking the lead, with the few remaining dogs attached to the long sledge following, "and the rest of the party abreast, in widely extended skirmish line, some distance behind the sledge." They crossed in silence, the ice swaying beneath them as they skimmed along. What the result would be none could tell; but they all felt the greatness of their peril.